New York

Whew, it's been a while. Shortly after my last post, I traveled to New York. Then to Seattle for Christmas, then to Victoria. Now that I'm settling back into my routine it's time to think about some photos.

I decided to pick a few of my favourite photos from the New York trip. While traveling to NY I had blazed through a lot of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide, and probably didn't remember much of it. So the following photos don't necessarily practice anything in particular that I have learned, but in the end turned out nicely (in my opinion).

The first is an entrance to the subway on Trinity Pl. and Rector St. I'm not really excited about the composure, but I'm very happy with how wet and dirty the surfaces look. That is what I was aiming for. I think the reason is that this particular entrance was exposed to very little outside light, and so the scene was mostly lit from the fluorescent lamp. I tried this shot with a few other subway entrances which were exposed to outside light (it was slightly overcast), with a far less interesting result.



The second is of the lobby of the Guggenheim Museum. The structure of the building is interesting, and I think I did a good job of capturing the scale by also including the people near the entrance. This is entirely by accident, as I had to set the camera on the floor and couldn't get my eye up to the viewfinder to see exactly what was in frame. A few other features that I like are the blurring of the people in motion, and the glare from the single spotlight aimed at the camera. Again, entirely by accident. What I don't like about this photo is the slice of ceiling at the top. The ceiling is an interesting structure, and this little piece of it kind of tells you it is there, but doesn't tell you much what it looks like, which I find a bit unsatisfying.



The last photo is not one of my top 3 favourites to look at, but I'm putting it here because it is an example where I set out to get a particular shot, and was successful. I am fascinated with the New York subway system. The thumping, screeching and grinding of the trains, the damp dark stations, and the characters you find there. Although I would have liked to capture more of the surrounding scene in this shot (perhaps with a secondary, static subject like a person), I think I did a good job with the train. It took a while to find the right shutter speed (1/3 seemed to be just right), to wait for the right train (there are 3 tracks, the first being too close and the last 2 being too far), and to get the timing right (using a 10 second shutter release delay, because I didn't have a cable release or remote with me).



The full photo set can be found on Picasa